Since the beginning of 2024 to the present, the number of applications on the Google Play Store platform has decreased from 3.4 million to 1.8 million. This means that the number of applications that were available to users around the world has decreased by 47%, writes TechCrunch, citing statistics from Appfigures.
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The reduction of this indicator on the Google platform does not go back to any global trend: on the contrary, the Apple App Store showed a slight increase over the same period from 1.60 million to 1.64 million units of mobile software. However, in the case of the Google platform, such changes played into the hands of both users who had to fight off fraud, spam and simply low-quality applications with a large presence in the search, and honest developers who have to fight for visibility with less honest colleagues.
Over the years, Google Play’s lax quality standards have left the market overflowing with low-quality apps. Apple still maintains strict app review procedures before publishing them in the App Store, while Google has traditionally relied on automated processes and malware scanning to speed up the process.
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In July 2024, however, Google announced that it would raise the minimum quality requirements for apps, which could affect their number in the Play Store. Now the company not only blocks faulty apps that freeze, do not install, and do not work properly, but also does not allow projects with “limited functionality and content” to be published. These include static apps, such as those containing only text or offering work with PDF files. Apps with a minimal amount of content are blocked, such as those containing only wallpaper; projects that do nothing at all or have no functions are banned, such as those in the testing phase or abandoned by developers.
Apps published by developers with new accounts undergo mandatory detailed verification; if there is a suspicion of deception or fraudulent schemes, specialists are involved in the verification. In 2024, the company deployed artificial intelligence to detect threats, tightened privacy policies, and improved tools for developers. As a result, 2.36 million apps that violated the policy were not allowed to be published on the platform and more than 158 thousand developer accounts that tried to distribute malware were blocked.
New regulations introduced in the EU, requiring developers to indicate their names and addresses in the description of the application, also had an effect – projects that violate this requirement are inaccessible to users in the region. Interestingly, Appfigures noticed a decrease in the number of applications in the Play Market even before the cleanup began last summer, and the company has not yet been able to explain this phenomenon. And this year, 10,400 new applications have appeared on the platform, which is 7.1% more than as of April last year.